For the first time in the last few years, I had entered to race the BananaMan on my own to see how I could get on and to get some useful triathlon practice in before Antwerp in a couple of weeks time. Secretly, I had set myself the target of seeing how close I could get to the previous Team Time Trial times I had set over the past three years. The wind on Sunday made me think it was going to be tough, but as always with Eton, if it is hard one way, it will be great the other.
The swim went about as well as could be expected really - I would like to think the course is a bit long as I would hope i was not swimming 1:30/100m pace, but I managed to stay with and pretty much lead out a pack of two other guys for the whole 800m eventually getting out just under 12 minutes. Still, the swim felt comfortable and it hadn't take much out of me for the rest of the race.
On to the bike now and I had been playing around with my position of recent, mainly to make it a bit more comfortable for the half Ironman, but in doing this, I had realised that it was not set up very well in the first place. For a start, the saddle was way too high I think and I had not moved it as far forward as it will go either. Things felt good now and as I pulled out of T1 in the lead, I decided to get my HR where I wanted it (~160BPM) and then just keep it steady for the rest of the ride. Going away from the transition area was tough on the day with the wind, but coming back was awesome...knocking out 30mph on a TT bike is a nice feeling really, especially on perfectly smooth roads. Finished the bike and felt quite sure I was quite a way ahead of the next placed guy in my wave. I would only find out though as I headed back on the first run lap as to where he actually was.
Out on the run and the plan started off being to just see how I felt and see if I was going to be able to up the pace at all after hopefully not starting off that quick. The first leg was in to the wind but a quick look at the pace meant that I was running quite well, and more importantly, I did not feel that bad. So I kept it steady for the second lap and then opened it up a bit on the last lap. All in all, was not a bad run for me with an average speed of just under 16kph. It was also nice to see on lap 1 that there was no chance that the second place chap was going to catch me.
In the end, I recorded my second fastest time on the course meaning that I beat the previous couple of year's TTT times. Om the day, I managed to win overall (all age groups)I also managed to beat the relay and the TTT teams time. So, all in all, a nice little warm up race before Antwerp at the end of the month.
A couple of weekends back, I raced the Regent's Park 10k as a brick session, had done a very hard 90 mins on the bike and then ran the 10k after to get some brick experience. Not too bad, finishing with 38:43 so only 40 seconds slower than the month before when I ran it fresh. Still, not back to my best, but getting there, Regent's Park is by no means a fast 10k anyway.
My plan for Windsor this year was quite simple, I wanted to win it. I had looked at the start sheet and seemed quietly confident that things might go okay for me. I had to obviously put in some good splits but I felt sort of fit, so hoped it would go to plan.
On the day of the race, I looked at the river and it appeared to me that there was little to no current whatsoever. To me, this meant the best option was going to be swimming the shortest course rather than trying to hug the banks etc and stay out the current which can often plague a good swim time. However, after sticking to that plan quite well, a quick glance of the watch on the way to T! proved it had not been the best plan - 23:30 - that was part 1 of the plan in tatters as i kind of knew I needed a good swim to give me a chance.
Out on the bike, thing felt okay and with all the passing that I was doing, I felt confident that I was putting in a good split. Towards the end, I certainly noticed that I was starting to tire though, this was certainly not a good sign when I knew I still had the 10k run to go. In the end, I came back in to T2 as the only person on the day to break the hour for the 42k course....good cycling, yes, but what followed was not good running.
Pretty much as soon as I got out on the course, I realised that I had gone a bit too hard on the bike to be able to run at the speed I wanted to. I think in hindsight this is just something I fail to learn every season. You can not ride the bike like it is a TT and then hope to run well off the back of it. Thankfully, I have started to spend some more time since this focusing on my effort and how easy it should feel to be able to run well. Anyway, I digress, the run just got worse and worse really and I eventually came across the line with a 41:30 split which was way off what I needed.
After looking at the results at the end of the day, there would have been little hope of me winning with some young South African chap there who stormed the course faster than my best case scenario. Still, I got 3rd in my age group and it was the catalyst I needed to better manage the last bit of my training before Antwerp.
